Investigation of the potential of Salt Bridge Mediated Microbial Fuel Cell for Power Generation and Brewery Wastewater Sludge Treatment
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Date
2019-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The release of brewery wastewater sludge with high pollutants and soluble organic contents can
pose a significant threat to human health and environment due to their toxicity. The present study
aims at investigating the potential of Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) to utilize brewery wastewater
sludge as feed stock of electricity generation. The characterization of the brewery wastewater
sludge before and after it goes through the microbial fuel cell was analyzed using reactor digestion
method, OxiTop BOD5, (HACH method DR890) molybdovanadate method, (HACH method DR
890) TNT per-sulfate digestion method for chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen
demand (BOD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) respectively. The effect of varying
salt concentrations (1 M, 2M, and 3M) of the salt bridge in MFC have been analyzed with different
factors like temperature ranging 20 to 45 °C, and pH ranging from 4 to 10. Results were analyzed
in terms of efficiency in chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5),
total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) removal and capability of energy generation. The
optimum temperature was found 32.5 °C, with the optimum pH of 7 and 3 M salt bridge
concentration in which the maximum removal percentage and power generation was observed. At
the optimum condition the observed power output, removal percentage of chemical oxygen
demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP)
were 0.88 V, 93.58%, 93.07%, 1.39%, and 1.19% respectively. Box-Behnken experimental design
(BBD) has been used to find the optimum condition for voltage production, chemical oxygen
demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD5), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP)
removal percentage.
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Keywords
Brewery wastewater sludge, Microbial Fuel Cell, Power generation, Salt bridge